the last burnt sienna crayon

The window envelope sat on the bed waiting for, daring me to, face it.

“To the parent(s)/guardian(s) of ______ ”

Of course it’s a standard, administrative way to address correspondence to the parent(s)/guardian(s) of a child, but after our/my struggle to become the parent(s) of _____, I’d really rather not be referred to as the guardian(s) of _____.

Call me picky, but. . . some things still just rub the wrong way. some things still hold the memory, and I’d rather not.

I knew what the contents of the letter would be, and I knew I would have to open it. I knew that if I opened it I would have to read it, and I really didn’t want to, but thought I may as well get it over with.

Yes, it retold all the gory details of that unpleasant meeting in May, where it was made perfectly clear that I am completely wrong, though he, our professional correspondant, was aware of how controversial the argument was, though he was aware of how passionately I felt about the issue at hand, and how he could understand how i felt and how stressful the whole thing was, but in the end. . . i was wrong. A room of two senior professionals (one, top in the country), one junior, and another adult all stood on one side of the line drawn in the sand, and I slid my chair back, quite literally, to the other, ganged up on, and standing out. Was I that strong to stand on my own there? Am I still? No, I don’t think I can be that certain. Passionate, convinced, but not certain. This nonconformist not only has a sensitivity to rejection, but a fear of standing alone, and of being wrong.

He didn’t use the word “wrong“, per se, because when it comes to philosophy and ethics, you can’t really, and you can’t prove anyone as being “wrong“, you only really have the majority and what they say to prove your case. But he and his collegues made themselves perfectly clear. No one in this country would support me in my opinion, and as I live in this country, that’s what any respectable and responsible parent/guardian would do. . . in their opinion. And as far as anyone is concerned, their opinion is what counts, as I am not a top professional of this kind in the country, only a parent, for what it’s worth.

I still don’t think he is “right” but he is not “unfair”. I am sure I must conceed. Everything tells me that his arguments are hypocritical. . . but I’m not interested in arguments anymore. I’m done arguing.

Who decides what “right” we have to anything?! He was as much making a decision for her as I was. When it comes down to it, no body has any “right” in this matter anyway, not me, not him, not even HER, as God has all the rights and has made all the decisions already. We simply don’t get a choice. Facts are facts. What right do we have to pretend they aren’t so. Don’t we do a child a disservice in teaching them denial, in teaching them that everything is ok, when it may not be. The line in that sand has a row of ostrich on one side, and me on the other.

But I must learn to quell my passion when it gets shaken up. It would seem that it, the things that it holds to, and I, are “wrong”. And I can’t in all honesty say, swear, that those on the other side of that line are not “right”.

So I went shopping and bought myself a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

Tags: choices, doubt, ethics, Flower, ice cream, rightandwrong

This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 7:10 am and is filed under documentary evidence, quandaries and conundrums. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.